©2012 by Storyteller
Donna Marie Todd
www.donnamarietodd.net
It’s been almost a year since my husband
died and I wanted some company, so I
decided to invite a friend over for dinner. I
prepared a chicken for roasting. We chatted
as root vegetables were slathered in garlic and olive oil. The veggies were tucked
in around the chicken, the lid went on the
pot. We were talking about everything and
nothing as I opened the oven to slide the
meal in. But when his eyes cut to the open
oven his jaw dropped and when I saw what
he was looking at I almost passed out! The
interior of my oven was a filthy, blackened
mess! I was so embarrassed! It was mortifying, absolutely mortifying. How long had
it looked like that?
Another friend gave
me a book about
cleaning your house
that same night, (Do
you ever wonder how
these things happen?)
and after reading it,
I decided to take my
oven on. I went under
the sink for the can of
cleaner and found it
oozing chemicals from
the seams.
the thing down, twice. It just seemed like the
right thing to do. The instructions said “For
baked on grime…” (Yes! That’s what I’ve got!)
“leave product on overnight.” So I slept on it.
The next morning, I steeled myself with two
cups of coffee that were strong enough to get
in a cup by themselves and meditated about
the clean up. Trust me, God gives you the
courage to do the hard stuff and I’m not being
trite when I say this oven clean up qualified
as a prayer request. I pulled on heavy rubber
gloves, filled the bucket with hot water and put
on an apron to channel my mother.
I opened the door and thought “I’ll just start
here!” (You have to start
somewhere, you know.)
I dipped my thick cleaning rag into the hot water, slapped it on the door
and suddenly everything
changed. Just let me say
right now that change has
been happening way too often in my life recently. But,
back to the oven. It seems
that a chemical reaction occurs when hot water mixes
with oven cleaner that has
eaten through charred food
overnight. Simply put: the
burnt stuff turns blood red when hot water
hits it. If I knew that I’d forgotten it and I will
probably never understand the science behind
this phenomenon. But be that as it may, the
chemical reaction simply overwhelmed me.
Trust me,
God gives you the
courage
to do the hard stuff
and I’m not being trite
when I say this oven
clean up qualified as a
prayer request.
My husband always
said “Baby, you and chemistry just don’t
get along!” So I did what I almost never
did when he was alive, which was take his
advice, and bought a new can of cleaner
that night. I took it out of the sack, took
the shades off the lamps and flooded the
kitchen with light so I could see what a
mess it was. (I look at myself this way, too,
before I start a diet.) Reassured that it was
indeed time to take the oven on, I read the
instructions, shook up the can and sprayed
It overwhelmed me because in that moment
it hit me why I hadn’t cleaned the oven before
now. Yes, it was a filthy, embarrassing mess.
It was also a metaphor, a repository for love!
As the layers of grime slid away I saw the
Photo by Shutterstock SeDmi
My Day With Easy Off®
My Day With Easy Off®, continued
©2012 by Storyteller Donna Marie Todd
thoughtful, nutritious meals I made for my mother as she lost her epic war with breast cancer. I
wiped up the gooey cinnamon sugar excess of the St. Lucia breads I bake for my sister at Christmas and the liquefied fat of the beef roasts my father expected on Sundays after church. The
layers of drippy casseroles that were showered on us by neighbors and friends, after that New
Year’s night when my husband had his first stroke, came off one at a time.
The oven was my metaphor, my repository for the charred
remains of love. But I didn’t know that until then. Some things
can’t be rushed and I clearly hadn’t been ready to even see what was in the oven, let alone deal
with it. But on that day, almost a year later, it was time. Each clean swipe at the blackened remains came back red. Memory after memory flooded my mind as bucket after bucket of bloody
water went down the toilet. At the end of the morning, the water finally ran clear. I was exhausted and out of tears.
I know that we tend to hide the remains of love in unexpected places. But, even now, I’m still a
little surprised that I’d hidden these in the oven!
About the Author:
Donna Marie, The Singer of Stories, performs for events across the globe. She delights in
sharing both her music (she trained in vocal performance at the Peabody Conservatory of Music) and her stories for retreats, conferences and concerts.
Learn more at www.donnamarietodd.net or email her at [email protected].
Photo by Shutterstock SeDmi
And it was all iced by the caramel orange of the pumpkin pie I’d made that sunny day in October
when we thought he had recovered. It was the day I sensed my husband was going away. He
was standing in the kitchen, sniffing the spicy air like a kid and rubbing his huge blue eyes. “My
eyes hurt,” he said, in much the same way my son had shown
me his bloody knees when he was three. Startled by the kitchen
timer, and a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach, I jerked the
oven door open and grabbed the pumpkin pie at about the same
instant I realized I wasn’t wearing oven mitts. Needless to say,
the pie went everywhere. My husband had another stroke the
next week and I hadn’t cleaned the oven since.